Like other Broadview Editions, this edition includes a wide range of materials from the period that help to set the text in context. In particular, the editor locates the text both in relation to elements in the mainstream culture of the day (such as the aesthetes); and in relation to the gay subculture.
Norman Page, who has written numerous books on nineteenth- and twentieth-century fiction, has also edited The Mayor of Casterbridge for the Broadview Literary Texts series.